Alright.
I apologize for my agitation in some areas. I'm not going to repeat to you all about that however.
To preface this: this setup to me just creates mechanical strife. It seems like it could potentially be used for gain but at the end of the day each minigame is a XYLO where one of them just happens to have a clear. You can spin the keep as 'oh we just vote for town' but it's a very small difference and doesn't change how someone would behave. This plays in part to what I believe Catboi? said earlier about Infinity and how she's just locked into her choice like a dance game. For clarity, there is extremely little room to think that Ana is scum. I also want to believe that this is town game experience I'll be able to take away from Ydra, despite her changing her mind on me. It's not a matter of how we solve Keep in my mind rather when it comes. Infinity is playing very close to antispew in my mind and only focusing on the necessity of needing to towntell, which is a smart decision. However, I think that behavior is less directed. I don't really feel like Infinity has a set of lines she's being fed from potential mates. I think they're mostly focusing on covering their own ass much like Infinity is.
So I'm not going to look at this with associative with mind, rather consider individual play. Scum who are in their minigames in my opinion don't really need to help their partners here. They need to just focus on themselves. This is why what Dunn/Lukewarm were frustrating me, not because what Ana believes. In a XYLO, you believe you're town and you don't want the decision to fall on you, or against you. This is not behavior that is difficult to replicate, and just because you're mechanically locked into a pseudo-XYLO does not
again
change anything. I can't just believe Lukewarm/Dunn must be town for X Y Z mechanical reason, and I'm not letting either of them accept the other as town.
Right now I am leaning that Dunnstral is just playing to Lukewarm's sensibilities. I believe that Dunn will take the mechanical agreement and just run with it. I don't like how he's approached me and changed his mind about me even if a lot of people have. I think him especially just dropped the read on me once it was no longer useful. I've seen how Dunn acts towards me and he is never that reluctant to townread me. That was the initial feeling that disturbed me. Regardless, do I think Dunn as scum
planned
what happened and could come in with good intentions about his choice? Not entirely, but I think he's adaptive. I don't understand where Dunn's behavior must be genuine because the choice really wasn't his to make? That's aside the point and talking about that aspect will start a migraine.
Moving on, Lukewarm's ideas are there but they're not perfect. They have imperfections very likely found in a newbie. I don't think newbscum trying to get all initiated with mechanical in-and-outs is impossible, but the difference between Lukewarm/Dunn is the approach of things. What's also different is that Lukewarm is coming off a loss is very likely more sensitive to himself. His backing off of Dunn was far more conclusive in that regard because he was the one to initiate at first. I don't have the actual data to back this but I get the feeling in some game where Lukewarm is scum he would be more tucked inward with his thoughts. Much more reliant on his partners to help him out or afraid to give his opinion. Lukewarm's conviction to me wins out compared to Dunn's convenience.
Mechanics are only useful if the benefit turns into some form of a read. Meaning, the person who is either giving or talking about the mechanics becomes readable by the conventions of such. I don't believe that is the case this game because the only useful thing given to us was already decided by scum. That being said, it's great that I really only have to be wrong on one of Catboi/S_S. I think Catboi's thoughts keep unprepared compared to S_S's already decided thoughts. I've struggled to see Point A to Point B with him. I've already talked about why I was leaning on S_S being town but I'm willing to correct that decision here. I think to break this line of thought what frustrates me is. When a lot of people scumread you, then it's hard to figure out how to argue against people. I want Catboi to trust me and I don't know how to entirely do that. S_S/Catboi share one similarity however which doesn't make my answer definitive compared to Dunn/Lukewarm. They know themselves to such a scary degree and both play in such a way that is almost always UTR. Those type of scum don't really buckle easy and will rely on their idiosyncrasies to cover up misplays. The issue of me leaning S_S instead of Catboi here is that I guess I just find Catboi much more approachable despite his apprehension towards me. I'm not sure if I personally offended him for some reason but that one line of him being like 'why should you care what I think' just really stuck out to me. I do care for one and two that emotive trait makes me think his catch-up is not a given choice. That he isn't just
pretending
to catch-up. At the end of the day, all S_S has done is stay true to himself but it hasn't really done favors for him, especially in D2. He's not really one to reach out and I think he's more afraid of errors in that regard. Catboi seems more willing to take chances.
